New York Knicks' Andrea Bargnani (77) in front of Boston Celtics' Kelly Olynyk (41) and Courtney Lee (11) after being called for a traveling violation in the third quarter of an NBA basketball game in Boston, Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. The Celtics won 90-86.
(AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

BOSTON – After the Boston Celtics salvaged a game they almost bricked away, head coach Brad Stevens said he felt his team needed to win one with such resilience.

Easy victories are nice and 41-point blowouts will never be frowned upon, but an 11-point fourth-quarter comeback can feel more important.

“I wouldn’t want to go through it again,” Stevens admitted Friday night after a 90-86 comeback thriller against the Knicks, “but our team needed to. We needed to have a lead, lose it, be backed up against the wall and figure out a way to win.”

After the Celtics opened the second quarter with a 16-2 run to take a 45-28 lead (they looked intent on getting Knicks head coach Mike Woodson fired), they scored just 17 points over the next 17 minutes (they might have been distracted by Woodson’s goatee). The Celtics’ big cushion turned into a double-digit deficit. Two minutes into the fourth quarter, trailing by 11, Stevens’ team looked like it would leave the TD Garden with a disappointing loss.

Just about the entire comeback happened at once, though. It almost seemed like one of the booby traps set in Home Alone. Harry (Carmelo Anthony) and Marv (the rest of his teammates) opened a door, which was attached to a string they could not see, and all of a sudden a comeback fell with a crash onto their heads.

Back-to-back 3s by Vitor Faverani and Avery Bradley, who led the stingy fourth-quarter defense, ended a 10-0 run that brought the Celtics within one. The run took less than two minutes.

“You could see when Avery went back in with (nine minutes left) that he was at a different level than he was before that,” Stevens said. “Anybody could see it just with their eyes.”

The Celtics tied the score with 4:28 left and went ahead two minutes later, on a Bradley 3 from the opposite corner. Boston allowed seven points over the final 10:32 and held Anthony to 1-for-8 shooting during the fourth quarter. For an accurate description of Anthony’s final period, the following situation (Vitor!) ended in a fadeaway jump shot that missed:

"He's Carmelo Anthony, you know? He's a very good player," Faverani said. "I tried to do my best. Just: 'Please miss the shot.'"

Though Stevens thought Brandon Bass offered the best matchup for Anthony, Green spent most of the fourth quarter defending the Knicks star. With Andrea Bargnani and Amare Stoudemire combining for 40 points, Bass’ size was needed elsewhere.

So Green, who looked bad against Anthony for a short time in the second quarter, was in a defensive stance with one minute left and the Celtics leading by four points. The Celtics small forward had just hit a running shot with contact, giving him eight points for the day and putting the Celtics ahead 90-86. He preserved that small cushion by remembering what he had sometimes forgotten in the first half: stay down on up-fakes and hesitation moves. He blocked the shot and limited Anthony to 0-for-4 shooting in the final quarter.

“It was just me being in this league numerous years, just learning from play to play,” Green said. “The first time we played him last week, I knew that was his go-to (move). In the first half that was his go-to (move) and I was just reacting a way I shouldn’t have. In the second half I corrected myself and that’s what allowed me to get the stop.”

Green joked he needed to step up defensively because that was the only way Stevens would keep him on the court. The Celtics small forward admitted he played “like poop offensively,” drawing all types of laughter from Sullinger.

“He said poop!” Sullinger cracked up.

Poop jokes are far funnier in the winning locker room.

Sullinger scored 17 of his 19 points in the first half, but only played six minutes in the fourth quarter as Stevens decided to stick with Faverani down the stretch. The Brazilian center’s role has dwindled over the past month, but he came off the bench to drill a 3-pointer, finish a critical layup and anchor the Celtics defense. Faverani played the final 10:47.

Why change what was working, Stevens figured?

“Very little brainpower (was) put into (the decision to stick with Faverani instead of Sullinger),” Stevens said, citing Faverani’s rim protection during the fourth. “All gut, no math or science behind that one. That was just one of those lucky things that happened the right way.”

Privately, the Celtics had discussed the way they lost to the Clippers on Wednesday. A good first half that night went wasted. But when a similar scenario unfolded again, the Celtics made enough plays to persevere.

“When the air kind of went out of the tires in the third quarter (against L.A.), we didn’t feel like we stayed connected throughout the whole last 24 minutes,” Stevens said. “Which is easy to do. Ninety-nine percent of the world will do that in those circumstances, in circumstances like tonight’s. But what you want to do is tighten it even more, stay together, become even more accountable (and) even more resilient and even tougher together. That was what happened tonight.”